Some Things

Fun With Keywords – Jan 2013

Browsing the things people searched for in order to land on your own site is always a fun thing to do, especially if you really enjoy doing things that are boring as all hell. Sometimes, though, you discover some fun* things people found you under.

Such As These

*Except they’re not really “fun things” so much as “just… things, like”, but that doesn’t sound as good.

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“My Two Son’s Every Night Night They Will Make A Wish For Danbo”

Running* a blog about Danbo, you don’t see much of interest – mostly weeaboos cooing over how cute they think Danbo is.

But the other day, I received this via the contact form:

Subject: Danbo the shineing star among this world

My two son’s every night night they will make a wish for Danbo and they will save their four other wishesh for Danbo and as well as his family.

The other night I heard my son say “I wish to help save Danbo and to keep him and his family save we love Danbo  and we wish him and his family well and most of all the luck in the  world save him . If I could I will give him all of my wishing stars just to save Him and his little brother as well as I will do the same for my family.

If I could only have one wish it would be  to help save danbo.

There was no link with it. It’s not link spam. It’s… it’s someone’s genuine words. Someone wrote this. About their actual kids. Someone’s kids are wishing to “save” Danbo. I’m literally flustered. I’m wat-ing my head off. Wat.

Who The Fuck Is Danbo?

Oh, right. It’s this guy, who is a cardboard robot from a manga called Yotsuba&!, seen here locked down for attempted murder:

*As long as “never actually updating it beyond the initial template you set up two years ago” counts as running.

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Access Netflix USA Content Via Xbox 360 In The UK, You Say?

Turns out it’s not so hard! Follow these simple steps and before long you’ll be watching masses of crap US TV instead of masses of crap UK TV! Wahay!

  1. Have Netflix installed on your Xbox 360 as usual, fire up the 360 but don’t launch Netflix
  2. From the 360 dashboard, go:
    1. Settings
    2. System Settings
    3. Network Settings
  3. Now just select whichever out of Wired or Wireless you’re currently using (it’ll have a tick on it)
  4. Hit Configure Network
  5. Stay in the Basic Settings tab, and move down to the “DNS Settings” bit, and select to edit it
  6. Hit Manual*
    1. Hit Primary DNS Server and enter in 199.167.30.144
    1. Hit Secondary DNS Server and enter in 149.154.158.186
    2. Move down and hit Done at the bottom
  7. Then just go Back Back Back Back Back all the way to the dashboard
  8. Turn the 360 off, leave it a minute, turn it back on
  9. Launch Netflix and marvel at the US content
    • Seems icons for some of the US shows are missing, which I’m not sure how to fix. I’m just using the search function to locate specific things at the moment, so it’s not an issue here yet.

Rad, But Now I’ve Realised I Hate US TV. What Now Mr Smarty Pants?

To switch back to UK content, simply follow up to step 6 but hit Automatic* instead, resume from step 7 and you’ll be back to normal.

Oh, Cool

*If you’re already using Manual DNS settings then make a note of them because you’ll need them again if you want to switch back to UK content.

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April Fools’ Day 2012 Cancelled

"For fucks sake, people" - Cameron

“You people just cannot be trusted” – Cameron

UK Prime Minister David Cameron called an emergency press conference at 8am this morning, to announce that the usual 1st April tradition of April Fools’ Day would be cancelled this year for the general public’s safety, in light of the recent petrol panic-buying trauma.

“It is with great sadness that I have had to take this decision, and I must emphasise that I have not taken it lightly, ” began the PM, in a sombre tone “but you guys… I just… I don’t even know any more. I really don’t. You’ve let me down big time with this panic-buying shit, guys”.

“I’ve been left with no choice but to cancel April Fools’ Day” he continued. “After what you’ve shown me over the last few days, I cannot take the risks of you buying into any of the big scams, jokes or tricks traditionally associated with 1st April. You’re too much of a liability, all of you”.

Cameron paused for a moment, appearing visibly distraught, before ending “For fucks sake, people”.

" :-/ " - Clegg

Implementing The Ban

Deputy PM Nick Clegg followed on from Cameron to announce further details of the implementation of the ban. “I too am sorely disappointed with the intellect of the British public displayed over the last few days, ” he began “and fully supported the PM in making this decision.”

“Anyone found to be attempting to trick or scam either large groups of people, or individuals, will be sentenced automatically to one day in jail for every person they attempted to fool. Yes, we’re suspending habeas corpus for this. That’s how pissed off we are”.

He added “If you think anyone has attempted to trick or fool you in any way, do not hesitate in contacting your local police station. We need to stop this thing before it gets out of hand”.

Clegg too then left the conference. Some in attendance claim to have seen a tear in his eye, but this can not be confirmed at this time.

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In The Future, There Will Be Only Garages

This morning I discovered, whilst laying in bed listening to Rob Da Bank on Radio1, a term for a genre of music which has probably been around for ages (especially given that it seems to encapsulate Burial in some way): future garage.

It’s like, garage, man, but it’s in the future! Or, the present, as the future’s now called.

Anyway

Some sounds, and then some links:

Reddit has a future garage area and soundcloud has an ace group too.

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Facebook’s “Most Recent” – New Method

Seems Facebook have removed (or, given the distributed nature of their codebase, are in the process of removing) the “sk=top” kludge that powered my old script.

So, if that’s stopped working for you, here’s the replacement method.

It’s been replaced with a new command, so here’s a new script to default the logo and home icon to use this, so you don’t have to click the “sort by” thing and change it each time you visit. “Top Stories” (now termed “highlighted stories it seems) aren’t removed any more, but they’re at least placed chronologically by using this, which is good enough.

Using It’s Pretty Simple, Still

  1. Install the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox by clicking that link, if you haven’t already got it
  2. Restart Firefox
  3. Or, remove the old script from Greasemonkey (from Firefox’s “Add-ons” management area there’s a thing called “Userscripts” where you can do this)
  4. Click this link to load my new script into Greasemonkey
  5. Go and load Facebook, note annoying “highlighted stories” at the top
  6. Click the Facebook logo at the top left and note how the stupid “highlighted stories” might still be there, but at least they’re sorted properly now, by post time
  7. Add this to your bookmarks, now it’s sorted properly, which’ll help smooth things out too, and save some extra clicks (assuming you launch sites from your bookmarks, herp derp)

And That’s That

Should work this way for quite some time, I’d expect.

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Beach Of The Dead 2011 – Highlights

Yesterday, several zombies arose in Brighton and done a walk all the way from somewhere to somewhere else. According to an official count from the main organiser there were around 4,000 of the blighters! 3,500 started out, with around another 500 latecomers (well, they are zombies after all) joining in as they went, and I done a photo of quite a few of them.

Most Of Them Had Red On Them

Click any one of the 15 photos below to go to the full version on Flickr. There’s 178 photos in total in my Flickr gallery. Sounds like a lot, but most of them aren’t rubbish, so it’s worth a look. You can click this to start at the first one, and just keep clicking “next” at the top, or you could click this for a thumbnail view of the lot. Aren’t I good to you, eh?

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Q: When’s An f/1.8 Not An f/1.8?

A: When You Give A Shit About Sharpness

I’d heard from people before that lenses were not always sharpest at their widest aperture settings, but never really sat down and checked it out. Reading an “e-book” about street photography just now and seeing the topic brought up again however, made me decide to check it out.

Well Gee That Sounds Exciting

Shut up!

Sorry. You Were Saying?

My 50mm f/1.8 prime seemed a perfect candidate to experiment with, so I stuck my Xbox360 pad in my light tent, both my 100W bulbs on it, and snapped four shots from my tripod, at f/1.8, f/2.8, f/4 and just for the shit of it f/8. At f/8 it was down to 1/40 shutter timing, even under dual 100W brightness, so it’s unlikely that’d ever get used, but I wanted a reasonably high end point.

Yawn

Well it turns out that, yes, the thing is rather pants when at its widest. See here, a nice four way 50% crop of the thing I was focussed on (the text of the “space” bar, set manually, at 10x zoom on the LCD, to make sure it was proper tight) essentially SOOC:

That’s Pretty Shit At f/1.8 Then

Yes, yes it is. I was quite surprised by exactly how shit it was. I think the shitness is exaggerated by the extreme bright light, mind, which is why it’s never been so clear before, but it’s always looked mildly pants when wide open, and I’ve always shot with it wide open because I bought it thinking it was an f/1.8. Now I know better, I’ll stick to f/2.8, or maybe even f/4, or above. Husss.

Oh and here’s the full shot of the pad at f/4 because why not.

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